For the Love of the Baron (The Noble Hearts Series Book 3)

by Callie Hutton

  Bloody hell, the woman had no sense of propriety or safety. “I said I will break in. There is no reason for you to go.”

  She looked almost as if she wanted to stamp her foot like a child. “I went to the morgue.”

  He waved his hand. “That was different.”

  “How so?” Her chin rose, and she regarded him with tight lips.

  Jonathan took a deep breath, annoyed at having to explain the situation because he was absolutely certain she would not accept his reasoning, and an argument would ensue. “I allowed you to go to the morgue—”

  “—allowed me!” She did stamp her foot.

  “—because you have some knowledge of anatomy.”

  She narrowed her eyes and her voice lowered. “Some knowledge?”

  “Yes.” He studied her tense position. “Very well. A great deal of knowledge.” ‘Twas best to stay on her good side if he hoped to pull this off without her joining in.

  “That’s better.”

  “This break-in is for the sole purpose of finding the journal. I will have it back—”

  “—which we will keep in my possession.”

  He scowled. “—and then we can go to the police with evidence of the thievery and possible connection to St. Clair’s death. I don’t know that they would look again at his demise because we found—or stole—the missing journal. However, they probably would consider it since he was a peer. Ordinarily, the police don’t dismiss a peer’s possible murder.”

  “Yes, it would be highly irregular of them to dismiss a murder of a peer. Except St. Clair was new to London and had no family members clamoring for justice. I imagine the search for his successor will take up whatever time and resources his solicitors would have spent demanding better answers from the police. So, when do we go?”

  Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Marigold, I really don’t want you involved. You saw how quickly Stevenson turned on us when we mentioned his association with Dr. Paglia. There is something sinister there, and it convinces me even more that he stole the journal. Why else would he be so adamant about not speaking of his former partner?”

  She tapped her chin. “There was something strange about how his demeanor changed so abruptly. I still think I should go because with two of us we can search faster. Get in, get the journal, get out.”

  He would try one more time, but knew it was useless since Lady Marigold Smith was one of the most stubborn women he had ever met. “I can search quickly by myself if I know you are home safe, and not where you could be in danger.”

  She didn’t bother to answer, just crossed her arms over her body and glared at him. “I am going. And don’t try to go without me.”

  He had thought of doing that—sneaking out—but the repercussions did not seem worth the subterfuge. Lady Marigold was a determined woman, and he wouldn’t put it past her to stake herself outside his home, waiting for him to go so she could trail him. Blast her father for being so lenient with her. She really ought to marry and have a husband take her in hand.

  That thought didn’t sit well with him at all. The image of another man taking her to his bed to enjoy the pleasures to be had with her body made him want to punch something.

  “Very well,” he conceded. “I had thought about going tonight. Since we never mentioned the journal during our very brief visit, Stevenson has no reason to believe our calling on him was no more than curiosity about how he and Dr. Paglia conducted their work. If we give him too much time to consider it, he might connect our visit to the journal and take efforts to secure it.”

  Marigold nodded. “But he stole it from you.”

  “Actually, after meeting Dr. Stevenson, I believe he had someone steal it for him. I can’t imagine him climbing through a window in my library.”

  “True, and yes, tonight is best. What time?”

  Jonathan sighed again. “Do you really want to put yourself in that position?”

  “What I do want is for you to stop trying to dissuade me. I am going.” She pointed her finger at him just as the carriage stopped in front of her house.

  Shaking his head, Jonathan left the carriage, turned to help her down. “Two o’clock in the morning. Be dressed in dark clothes and do something with your hair to cover it up. There will be a moon tonight, and your hair will be quite visible.”

  “Yes, very good idea. I will be ready.” The excitement in her voice rattled him. She would be death of him, yet.

  “How will you get out of the house?”

  “The same way I did when we went to the morgue. I told Lady Crampton I was under the weather and wished to retire early. Then when everyone was abed, I crept down the back stairs and met you.”

  He nodded his head, once again reminded how difficult a wife Marigold would be. Lord, if they married he would have to sleep with her tied to his wrist. That brought up other images that warmed him and had his lower parts coming to life.

  ***

  “What the devil have you done?” Jonathan glared at Marigold as she exited the back door. It was two o’clock in the morning, and she was ready to accompany him on their quest to find the journal.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? You are wearing breeches and have some sort of smudges on your face.”

  Marigold looked down at herself, hiding her smile. “Yes. I believe you are correct. I am wearing breeches.”

  Jonathan leaned his head back as if appealing to a higher power to give him strength. “What if someone sees you in those…” He waved in the general direction of her legs.

  “Jonathan. We are about to break into a man’s home and steal something from him. I think our main concern should be avoiding getting caught, not how I am dressed.”

  Breeches! Looking at her long legs encased snugly in men’s trousers almost had him dragging her to the bushes to peel them off her slender form and have his way with her enticing body. She was enough of a temptation without making it harder on his overwrought man parts.

  She continued to smile at him, as if she knew where his thoughts were wandering. He needed to get himself under control. They had a job to do. “And your face?”

  “You said there would be a moon tonight. Therefore, I smeared a bit of coal on my face to cut down on the glow from my skin.”

  He took her by the elbow and moved her along. “Do you have any idea what those breeches do to me?”

  “Do to you?”

  “Yes. You don’t want to know what I’m imagining as I look at your legs in those breeches.” If he wasn’t afraid of stumbling and throwing them both to the ground, he would close his eyes. Although that would not help since the image was already seared into his memory. Forever.

  She grinned, enjoying his discomfort. “You don’t say? How interesting.”

  “Stop it, Marigold,” he snapped. “We have to keep our minds on what we are about to do.”

  “I have no problem doing that.” She smirked.

  “Fine. When we reach Stevenson’s house, I will remove my jacket, waistcoat, and shirt and strut around his library.”

  “Oh.” She flushed, the image of his bared torso, all that golden flesh gleaming in the moonlight dried up her mouth. How she would love to see that sight and run her fingers over his warm skin. “You win. Maybe the breeches were not a good idea.”

  By the time they settled the matter of the breeches and golden torso, the carriage was within proximity of Stevenson’s house. They parked the carriage some distance away to avoid the possibility of attracting Stevenson’s attention.

  Marigold pushed the dark curtain aside and looked down the street toward the forbidding house. She shivered, thinking maybe she should have let him do this alone. “How will we get in?”

  “I will try all the lower floor windows while you wait in the carriage. Then I will summon you when we can enter. I’m hoping one of the unlocked windows will be in the library. That way we won’t have to stumble around the house, looking for the right room.”

  She watched him walk awa
y, still imagining his naked chest. She huffed. ‘Twas quite unfair of him to put that picture in her mind.

  About ten minutes after he left her, he was back. “There is an open window in the library. We must hurry. I made a bit of noise when I came through the window and waited to see if anyone came to investigate. Luckily, no one did, but now I just want to get this over with.” He held out his hand. “Come.”

  Hand-in-hand they made their way down the alley to the back of the house where a window was fully open. He twirled his finger to signal she should turn. Then he grabbed her around the waist and lifted as if she weighed no more than a bag of feathers. She rested her bottom on the window sill, then swung her legs in, and placed her feet as quietly as possible on the floor.

  It was dark. Very dark. And an odd smell that she hadn’t noticed when they were there earlier assailed her nostrils. She turned as Jonathan made it through the window.

  He adjusted his clothing from the climb, then leaned close to her ear. “Let’s split up. I will go through the bookshelves while you search the desk. There should be enough light from the moon that we won’t need to light a candle. Even if the need arises, it shouldn’t be a problem since we are at the back of the house, so no one from the street will see the candlelight.”

  Jonathan headed toward the closest book shelf and ran his fingers over the bindings. Marigold walked to the desk and drew open the middle drawer. Nothing but papers and old envelopes, some not even opened.

  She looked in the drawer on her left, and her nose began to twitch. She rubbed it, hopefully avoiding a sneeze. Carefully she closed the drawer and reached for the one under it. Nothing there, either, but more papers, a ledger of some sort, and an ink well. Dr. Stevenson was certainly a messy man. But something was bothering her nose again. An unusual smell, almost metallic.

  After moving to the other side of the desk, the smell got stronger. She passed the desk and looked alongside it. She gasped, and attempted to call Jonathan, but her throat froze. When it did open, she screamed.

  Jonathan raced to where she was. “Marigold, for heaven’s sake, be quiet. Dr. Stevenson will hear you and be down in a minute.”

  She continued to stare in horror and shook her head. “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “Dr. Stevenson won’t hear us, because Dr. Stevenson is lying at my feet with a very ugly knife protruding from his back.” With those few words, her eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she slumped toward the floor.

  “Marigold!” Jonathan dove for her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jonathan broke into a sweat as he heard footsteps on the stairs at the front of the house. He tapped Marigold’s cheek. “Wake up, Marigold.”

  Nothing.

  He eyed the French doors in between the two windows. Carrying Marigold in his arms, he strode to the door, unlatched it and left. It didn’t matter that he left the door open because once the staff member on his way entered the library and saw the dead body of his employer that would take up his attention.

  Unless, of course, one of the male servants had a pistol, in which case he might come after them, assuming they were the murderers. Hugging her close to his body to keep from jerking her too much, he raced to the carriage.

  Surprising the driver, the man jumped down and quickly opened the door. “Hurry, get this vehicle moving.” Juggling Marigold, Jonathan climbed into the carriage. “My house, but go to the mews, not the front entrance.”

  “Yes, my lord.” He scurried to the top of the carriage and within seconds of the door closing they were rattling over the cobblestones. Jonathan looked behind him, but no one was chasing the carriage.

  He returned his attention to Marigold. “Marigold. Wake up sweetheart.” Why wasn’t she a normal woman who would carry a vinaigrette in her reticule, so he could revive her? No. Lady Marigold wore breeches, smeared her face with coal dust, insisted on breaking into houses and morgues in the middle of the night and generally made his life much too taxing for his peace of mind.

  Continuing to hold her in his arms, he was grateful to see they were already on his block. He could certainly not return her home passed out and dressed in breeches. As improper as it was for him to be bringing her to his bachelor home, given the circumstances of them fleeing the scene of a murder in a home they’d broken into, this was a minor offense.

  Jonathan climbed out of the carriage and the driver proceeded to the back door and opened it, stepping aside so Jonathan could enter with his burden. “Thank you, John. Find your bed. I will see that Lady Marigold gets home.”

  How he planned to do that was questionable, but right now his main problem was getting her to wake up. He passed the kitchen and scullery, and continued to his drawing room, where he placed Marigold gently on a settee.

  She began to move and moan. Then her eyes fluttered open, and she touched her hand to the back of her head. “Ouch. What happened?”

  “Did you hit your head?” No wonder it had taken her so long to awaken.

  “Yes, I must have because it hurts. Ouch.” She dropped her hand and suddenly sat up, grabbing the edge of the settee. “Oh, I don’t think I should have done that.”

  “Lie back down and I’ll get a cold cloth for your head.” He headed to the doorway.

  “What happened to the dead body?”

  Jonathan snorted. “I didn’t remain long enough to find out.” He left the room and hunted down some clean cloths in the kitchen and dunked it into a pan of cool water.

  When he returned to the drawing room, Marigold was sitting up, but still swaying a bit. “Honey, I think you should lie back down.”

  “I have to go home.”

  “Yes. I know you have to go home, but right now I need to check your head.” He sat alongside where she’d laid back down on the settee. He felt around the back of her head and encountered a large bump. “Oh, yes. You did bang you head when you swooned.”

  “I don’t swoon.”

  He grinned at her as he placed the cloth on her head. “Oh, no? What was it then?”

  “I merely tripped on the dead body and fell, hit my head, and it appeared I had swooned.” She winced when he placed the cloth on her head. “Ouch. Here, let me do it.” She took the cloth from his hand and placed it gently on her head.

  “I am going to have a brandy, but with a head injury, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to have one.”

  “Nonsense. I need a brandy as much as you. I was the one who discovered the dead body.”

  He walked to the sidebar and poured a few fingers into his glass and less than one finger into Marigold’s.

  She took it from his hand and sipped. “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head. “The last thing we want to do is get involved with a murder.”

  Marigold took another sip of her brandy. “Do you believe there is a connection between the man who sold the journal and ended up dead, then the man we assumed stole it from him and also ended up dead?”

  “As I’ve said before. I do not believe in coincidences.”

  “The question now is, was he killed for the journal? And if so, for what reason? We assumed St. Clair was killed for the journal because Dr. Paglia’s partner wanted it for whatever reason. Most likely to see what Paglia had to say in his journal about what they worked on together. But as far as we know there was no third person, so why was it stolen again?”

  Jonathan ran his fingers thorough is hair. “We have no certainty that the journal was stolen again. We didn’t have enough time to do a thorough search. In fact, I have reached the point where I no longer want the journal. In fact, I wish I had never heard of it.”

  Marigold’s jaw dropped. “No. What do you mean you don’t want the journal? I’m not giving up on this. I think we have an even more important reason to discover what is going on.”

  “Why? It’s obvious there is something wrong and sinister about that journal.”

  “Oh, don’t be a ninnyhammer. We have been gi
ven a golden opportunity to solve a crime, and you wish to walk away from it.” She plunked her empty glass on the table. “Well, I’m not. I intend to find out what happened and why.”

  Jonathan stood, prowled toward her and pulled her up by both her hands. “You. Will. Not.” Then, for lack of a better idea, he pulled her against him and covered her lips with his.

  ***

  Marigold melted against him. The pounding in her head turned into throbbing throughout her entire body. Lord Stanley knew how to kiss. No gentleman who had ever kissed her in a dark garden had affected her like this. His tongue nudged her lips, and he swept in, sending shivers of desire straight to her core.

  He cupped her cheeks and angled her head, so he could take the kiss deeper, his lips hard and searching. Just as she realized she’d stopped breathing, he pulled back and scattered kisses over her face, light butterfly kisses. “Damn, you drive me crazy. I want to throttle you and bed you at the same time.”

  She yanked his cravat lose and tossed it on the floor, then returned the scattered kisses he’d given her to his warm throat. “I prefer bedding to throttling.”

  “Don’t say that.” He sucked on her ear lobe, his hand wandering up her body until he cupped her breast, releasing a slight moan.

  Marigold yanked his shirt free of his trousers and slid her hands up his warm torso. He shivered, gooseflesh popping up on his skin as she ran her palm over his muscles. “Why shouldn’t I say that?”

  “Because I am very close to scooping you up and taking you to my bedchamber.”

  She nibbled on his neck and soothed it with her tongue. “I’ve always wondered what a gentleman’s bedchamber looked like.”

  He fisted her hair and pulled her head back, his face hovering over hers. His eyes were dark, brooding, intense. She could almost see the steam coming off his heated body. “I have wanted you for so long, months before we even got involved in this journal. I just didn’t recognize it. I thought I disliked you, when actually I was fighting the strong attraction.”

  “Why fight?” She fumbled with the buttons on his trouser flap.

  He covered her hand with his. “Are you absolutely sure this is what you want, Marigold? Because if you say no, I will bundle you up into my carriage and bring you home. You are playing with fire.”